Ep #166: Life Choice- A Sabbatical

You are listening to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast with Dr. Sonia, episode 166.

Welcome to The Midlife Sex Coach for Women™ Podcast, the only show that combines a fun personality, medical knowledge, sexual counseling, and life coaching together. To create unique sex coaching that helps busy women awaken their libidos, address intimacy issues, and learn how to express their sexuality for the rest of their days. Here is your host, certified life coach and sexual counselor, Dr. Sonia Wright.

Hello, hello, hello, Diamonds, how are you doing? It’s Dr. Sonia. It’s so good talking to you. I feel like it’s been a whirlwind couple of weeks and I’m back because I have a special message for you. I want to tell you what’s going on in my life and I want to talk to you about my plans, at least till the end of this year.

So I know that you all listened to my episode on life pause. And of course, that got me thinking because as I stated at that time, I adopted another daughter. And now I have a total of four children, three at home and one has left the nest, though he was visiting recently and it was really wonderful to have him at home as well. So I have one, he’s 24, Julian, you all know about him. He is out in the world. Right now he is a bird ranger at Yosemite National Park, so he’s doing great.

And then I have the other three that are at home. I’m actually finding that they are needing a lot of time and my attention right now. They have a lot going on and I’m realizing that I need to focus on my children at this point in time. So my life pause, it has come to the place where I have to take a life pause from my business of sex coaching for a little while, at least till the end of the year, so a sabbatical. I think that’s a good plan for me. And I was realizing, wow, when was the last time that I took a break?

And I realized the last time I took a break was before, well, in all actuality, I’d have to go back to 1991 when my husband at the time, Edward and I actually, I guess he was my fiancé, decided that we were going to live in England for a while. And we left our jobs and we moved to England and we lived there for about a year and a half. And that was a great time. We actually got married while we were over there. And then we came home and I started working. I used to do finance and reimbursement policies in healthcare.

And then in 1994, I decided I wanted to be a doctor. And from that point on I have been on this journey, this career journey and this pushing myself and going from one goal to the next, to the next, to the next and not necessarily that it was bad, but definitely did not have any breaks. In 1994 when I decided I wanted to be a doctor, I had to go back to school and get all my prerequisites for medical school. And I started medical school in 1998 and I was 32 years at that time.

And I also decided that at the end of my time my goal was to be a doctor, obviously, but also to be a mother. And so then I went on the journey to have a child. And by 1999 I was in my second year of medical school and I had given birth to Julian. And really life has been go, go, go, go, so since that time. I’ve always been juggling a number of different adventures, endeavors at the same time, residency, more children along the way, starting a business as a sex coach, getting training as a life coach and a sexual counselor.

And then it really has been a journey of go, go, go, go, go. And at this time I’m realizing that my heart, my soul, is saying pause, take a moment, breathe. You’ve done so much and there’s a time where you get to take some time for yourself, recuperate, regenerate. Get into that space where you get that energy back, where you refill your soul. And I think there’s a better word for it, but refill is a word that’s coming to me, at this moment. When you get to reassess what it is that you want in life and where you want to shift your priorities. And I’m at that place at this moment in time.

My children need me and I need them. And I love being around them and spending time with them. And so I’m going to be taking a life pause from my sex coaching business. I’m still going to be here. I’m still going to be coming back definitely next year. I still have plans to do Own Your Sexuality Now intensives. I won’t be doing them as a full 12 week program. I’ll be doing them as an intensive weekend. So the same material, but we’ll be getting together over the course of a weekend from Friday evening through to Sunday.

And doing the material that way I find that it really has a bonding effect with the women in the group. And it’s less of a commitment for people, which is good. And at the same time they can make a change in their life rapidly in a short period of time. So I will be having Own Your Sexuality Now intensives starting next year with Lisa, Lisa Hatlestad. And Coach Donna is always there too. They’re my team, you will definitely be seeing them. And actually coach Dr. Kimmery, because she leads the trauma portion and the relationship section as bonuses in the Own Your Sexuality Now intensives.

So you’ll be seeing my whole team again and myself again. But at this time, I think it’s time for a life pause to give myself a little bit of a break and to focus on my children, who are all not struggling, but definitely having some life challenges themselves. And so to mirror for my children that it’s okay to take a break and focus on something that’s important and also to mirror for my Diamonds. We don’t have to be pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing, pushing.

And especially as women, we have a tendency that we have to handle everything, we have to juggle everything. And I decided that I wanted to take care of myself, take care of my children, but also be an example as to what is possible. When you need to take some downtime, it’s okay to take that downtime. Now, I’m not likely to be a full-time stay at home mom, those women work, that is an intensive job. And I remember my son, Julian being about 15 years old and he’s like, “No, mom, please do not become a stay at home mother.” He’s like, “You would drive us insane.”

So no, I’m not going to be a stay at home mom. They are pretty impressive and my hat goes off to them. But I am going to focus a little bit more on my children and be there for them at the time that they need me. But I will be back, Diamonds and you can always find me if you need me. You can always message me on my website. And I’m here for you but I am going to take a semi sabbatical or a small sabbatical till the end of this year and then I will be back in 2024. I love you all. Alright, Dr. Sonia out.

Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of The Midlife Sex Coach for Women Podcast. If you enjoy Dr. Sonia’s fun and caring approach to sexual intimacy, head to soniawrightmd.com to learn more.